Dead Man's Embers (25 page)

‘I blame the War,' Maggie Ellis says.

‘So do we all,' Lizzie says, adding under her breath so that only Non hears her, ‘you silly old besom.'

‘And talking of the War,' Maggie says, leaning over the roses, ‘did you hear about Elsie Thomas's letter from the War Office?'

Non stops scrubbing and looks first at Lizzie, who shrugs, then at Maggie. ‘No,' she says. ‘A letter about what, Mrs Ellis?'

‘Well . . .' Maggie Ellis settles her bosom on the roses. ‘Elsie got someone to write to the War Office for her to ask if she could have
Benjamin back from that grave in London, and they wrote back to her and said the soldier in London was unknown and that Benjamin had a grave in France, and they sent a picture of it. It was a cross with a number on it, I saw it, it's better than the one she's got, but you still can't read the number. Elsie thought it was lovely.'

‘I thought she'd given up on all that after seeing the woman in Port,' Non says.

‘Ah, well,' Lizzie says, stopping to stretch her back. ‘She had, missus, but someone persuaded her different.' She turns to Maggie Ellis, ‘Didn't they?'

‘Nothing to do with me, Lizzie,' Maggie says.

‘Not what I heard,' Lizzie says, and returns to her pounding.

‘And,' Maggie says, ‘a lot of people went to see that woman in Port after what happened to Elsie. Seems she's a foreigner, would you believe. Her own husband was killed in the War.'

‘She's still there, then?' Non says. She shakes her head. ‘Well, I think she was a fake.' And yet, she thinks, fake or not, she did bring Elsie some comfort – though she seemed to have frightened herself! Then that séance in London – what a sham that woman was, too – but what she told people seemed to comfort them. In her mind's eye she sees Angela weeping with happiness. People are deceived because they want to be, she thinks.

‘Ah, but Non, did you know . . .' Maggie Ellis leans so far over the wall that Non thinks the roses that were blooming earlier must be completely destroyed. It is a wonder they keep growing at all. ‘Did you know that it's the child who has the gift?' Maggie looks from Non to Lizzie and back again. ‘It's not the woman, it's the child.'

The child! No wonder Madame Leblanc had been so astonished. Non feels the hair rise on the back of her neck, and begins to scrub with vigour.

‘I told Elsie it was the child,' Maggie Ellis says. ‘But she doesn't want to go back there again. No, it's all about the war memorial with Elsie now. That's what I've heard, anyway.'

Maggie picks up news like a terrier scenting a rabbit, thinks Non. And at that, Maggie points her nose in the air as if she has scented another piece of gossip.

‘Someone's at my front door,' she says, and heads back for her house.

‘Is old Mrs Davies still after putting her Billy on the memorial?' Lizzie says.

‘Oh, I don't know, Lizzie. I've lost track of where we are with that. I hope not. I hope Davey's managed to persuade her to leave it alone.'

‘A bad lot, that Billy,' Lizzie says.

‘You mentioned that before, Lizzie. And just lately, I heard something – I didn't know about this – I heard what Billy was like, you know, with the girls and the babies. And I wondered – did you ever hear anything about that, Lizzie?'

Lizzie looks up from her tub. She nods. ‘Heard something about it, missus. Got a cousin in Tremadoc.'

‘What about Osian?' Non says. ‘Is he one of Billy's? I don't want details, Lizzie – I just want to know.'

Lizzie nods again.

‘For sure?'

‘Yes, missus, for sure.'

‘Thank you, Lizzie,' Non says.

‘He were like an old goat.'

‘Who's that?' Maggie Ellis bobs up again behind the wall. ‘Who are you talking about? That William Morgan? Real old billygoat, that one.'

‘Looks like one, too,' Lizzie says, ‘with that sorry beard.'

They cackle companionably, a pair of old crows. Non knows exactly what William Morgan is like from helping Gwen Morgan out so many times over the years. Until Davey put a stop to all that.

‘He's a sour one, too,' Maggie says. ‘Did you hear about Gwen dressing up like Charlie Chaplin and walking down Tryfar swinging a walking stick just like he does in that film I saw in Port? Did you see it? And William Morgan's best black shoes on her feet. Laugh? I thought I'd die. It was better than a circus. But old William didn't think it was funny. ‘Specially when he saw his shoes. You should have seen his face.'

‘She paid for that, Maggie,' Lizzie says.

Maggie Ellis stops laughing and leans on the wall. ‘Men!' she says.

‘Her Emlyn's a good lad, though, looks after her,' Lizzie says. ‘I dare say your Wil knows him from the golf, missus. He goes caddying down there, too. He'd make your Davey a good little apprentice in a few years. How old would he be, Maggie? Ten? Eleven?'

But Maggie is not listening. ‘Someone at your door, Non,' she says. ‘Can't you hear? It'll be that tramp I just sent round, the one at my door just now. An Englishman. Said he was looking for Davey. Why d'you think an English tramp's looking for Davey?'

Non's mind races as she hurries through the house, drying her hands and arms as best as she can on her damp apron. An English tramp – could it be someone Davey knew in the War who has fallen on hard times? Someone who could help him remember what he has forgotten? She pauses in front of the looking glass on the hat stand to tidy her hair, then opens the front door.

The man has retreated to the lower step after knocking on the door, so that she is looking at the top of his head. Why did Maggie
Ellis think he was a tramp? His shoes are a little scuffed and dusty, but his fair hair is neatly parted and combed, and he is wearing a lightweight suit that, though it looks a little grubby to be sure, is of a better quality than anyone can afford around here.

‘You're looking for Davey?' she says.

‘Davey Davies.' The man does not raise his face to look at her and she barely hears what he says.

‘Davey's at work. Can I help you?'

‘Would you direct me to his place of work, if you please?'

He speaks the way Angela spoke, she thinks, and the way the grand English families spoke who used to come here to their big houses until the War took away their husbands and sons and their money. Maybe he takes her for the skivvy, standing here in an apron.

‘I'm Rhiannon Davies, Davey's wife.'

The man makes no response; his shoes seem to be of more interest to him. Non waits a moment, then gives him directions to the workshop.

He says something to his shoes that Non takes for thanks and turns away. She watches him as he walks down the hill until he is out of her sight. He shuffles his feet like an old man, and she sees what it was about him that led Maggie Ellis to call him a tramp – a slump of despair in his shoulders.

She closes the front door and hurries back to Lizzie and the washing. How odd, she thinks, how peculiar. She cannot imagine Davey shoulder to shoulder with someone like that in the trenches.

They are having their last supper before Wil leaves them. Here is Wil himself, sitting next to his father and eating his favourite meal: the last of the salt bacon, and potatoes fried to a crisp. Catherine Davies has already objected to eating any kind of pork, even one as well salted as this, because it is summer, and has given her portion to Wil. The time of year does not worry Wil. He will eat most things at any time, like any growing boy. Which is what he is to Non, however manly he may feel as he sets off to his new life.

‘I just hope you're not all ill after eating that meat.' Catherine Davies cannot let it go. ‘And it's rather extravagant in the middle of the week, Rhiannon.'

‘It has to be special to wish Wil well for his journey,' Non says.

‘He deserves a good bellyful this evening.' Davey ladles the rest of the potatoes onto Wil's plate before anyone else can take them. ‘He's done a week's work today, showing Teddy the ropes.'

Catherine Davies sniffs. She doesn't actually need to say anything, the sniff alone would do it, but she cannot help it. ‘I just hope that you won't have cause to regret taking on a vagrant like that.'

It has happened so quickly, one day there was a man at the door looking for Davey, and two days later he is Teddy – Teddy! – and working for Davey, sleeping in the workshop loft and eating their food. Davey told Non he had no idea who Teddy was, that he must be one of the many things that Davey seems to have forgotten, but Teddy said that they met in the clearing hospital and Davey had given him a letter to be sent to Non if he were to die or disappear. Non had shuddered at the thought, and then realised that this must be one of the letters Angela had mentioned. How many more of them were there? Davey said the least he could do was make some provision for the man when he had gone to so much trouble to return the letter to its writer. And it had happened at a propitious time, Davey argued, as if he had to persuade himself. Wil was about to leave, and the amount of work was increasing fast with not only coffins to make, but the new items of furniture the owner of Wern Fawr was ordering. And the carvings he had commissioned meant that Davey had to keep an eye on Osian, too.

‘He'll be fine, Mother, and it's only temporary until Albert agrees to a new apprentice for me,' Davey says. ‘Don't let your food get cold.'

There is an air of excitement among the diners, and Non knows this is because each has a special gift for Wil to remember them by and to be useful to him on his voyages. How they have managed to keep this secret from Wil, she does not know. Meg is usually the one who cannot hold a secret for long, but maybe she is beginning to become a little more private, a little more secretive, since she had her reply from Jean, because she has not told any one of them anything about him, nor shown them the photograph he sent to her.

Non finishes her potatoes and pork. She has a better appetite
than she is used to having, and the salt is welcome in the heat, though she fears they will all be drinking water like fish all evening. She lays her knife and fork on her plate and looks around the table at the faces there. The only member of the family missing is Herman. He has flown in and out of their house all his life, but cannot stay in the vicinity of her mother-in-law without attempting to peck her, and has had to be shut in the kitchen. She can hear his soft, sad caws as he eats the potato she has left him.

Now Meg is signalling to her. Everyone has finished eating. They had decided beforehand, Meg and she, that the gifts would be given to Wil before the pudding came to the table. Meg helps her to clear the supper dishes and cutlery, and Non lights the lamp at the centre of the table. Wil looks at them, from one face to the next around the table, his eyebrows raised in a question.

‘It's a surprise,' Meg says. ‘But we didn't decide, Non, we didn't choose who was to go first.'

‘Shall we begin with the youngest?' Non says.

‘You first then, Osian.'

Meg has changed in her attitude to Osian. She has a grudging respect for his carving skills, and there is no doubt that she is quite pleased that he has chosen her as his model, though Non does not suppose it means anything to Osian in terms of love. Which of them can know for sure what goes on in Osian's heart, or head?

Osian is as oblivious as usual to what is required of him, and Meg helps him by bringing from under his chair a small parcel, longer than it is wide, and giving it to Wil. ‘This is from Osian and Herman,' she says, and cannot resist adding: ‘It will be very useful to you, Wil, to write home.'

Wil peels the paper from his gift and they gasp in unison when
they see what it is. Even Meg, who has been supervising the making and the wrapping of it, seems amazed anew at its beauty and the skill apparent in it. ‘It's one of Herman's feathers,' she says, as proudly as if she had made it herself.

It is more beautiful than anything Non has yet seen of Osian's work. It is a simple quill pen carved of wood. It is passed around the table for all to see and exclaim at. Osian's carving, in some way Non cannot imagine, has captured the very nature of featheriness. She runs her finger lightly along it, almost expecting to feel the softness, and realises how clever a construction it is, a perfect pen, curved to fit Wil's left-handedness. She marvels at the neat contraption at the end to which the nib is fitted to become part of the feather.

‘That is perfect, Osh. Thank you,' Wil says. ‘Almost too good to use, really. What if I break it?' He lays it on the tablecloth. And it is true that his hands, already thickened with the work they do, look too clumsy and heavy to use such a delicate instrument.

‘It's stronger than it looks. Osian made it specially for you to write to us with,' Meg says, ‘and for you to write about your adventures with.' She produces a parcel of her own as if by sleight of hand. ‘In here.'

Meg has prepared her own gift to Wil with such secrecy that Non has no idea what to expect. Wil pushes his pen gently to one side, places Meg's parcel in front of him and fumbles to open the knots in the ribbon she has tied around the wrapping paper.

‘Open it, open it.' Meg takes the parcel from Wil because he does not obey quickly enough, pulls the ribbon away and folds back the wrapping to reveal a book with an embroidered cover. She opens the volume to show blank pages waiting to be written upon. ‘See, everybody,' she says. ‘Wil can write all his adventures
down here and then we can read about them when he comes home.'

Catherine Davies is watching the proceedings with her eyebrows raised. ‘A pen and a notebook,' she says. ‘Wil has never been a great one for writing, has he? I should know. When I think of the hours I wasted trying to make him write with his right hand—'

‘But this is a special pen for his left hand, Nain,' Meg says. ‘It'll be something for him to do in the evenings. Won't it, Wil?'